CHS TIGER NO LONGER TO BE INCLUDED IN MISSOURIAN

Cape Girardeau school officials have decided Central High School's student newspaper, The Tiger, will not be included as part of the Southeast Missourian newspaper next year.

The recommendation for a change came from Central High publications adviser Ray Anne Kloss and was approved by former principal Dan Milligan and director of secondary education Jim Englehart, Kloss said.

For about three years, The Tiger has been delivered to 8,500 households in the Cape Girardeau area as an insert in the Southeast Missourian. An additional 1,000 copies of the newspaper have been provided to the school for distribution on campus.

John Renaud, production manager at the Southeast Missourian, said printing and distributing student newspapers have never been a profit-making ventures for the Southeast Missourian.

"We do feel it's an asset to our paper, though," he said.

"Everybody benefited. The students benefited by having more people see their work. The school benefited by having good public relations. The parents and grandparents and anyone else who knew the students benefited. The advertisers benefited because instead of 1,000 copies, there were 9,500 copies printed. The newspaper benefited by having The Tiger as part of our newspaper. Everybody benefited, except they don't want to do it any more."

Kloss hopes the change will allow the student newspaper to break even financially next year.

"This year I have kept up with the money," Kloss said. "We've had 13 papers and have lost money on all but two. The school wants me to at least break even with The Tiger."

This past year, the school was billed $624. That amount is dependent on the number of ads sold by the students. In 1991-92, student ad sales earned the district $1,052.

The school is billed for the difference between what advertisers bought and the cost of producing the newspaper. If students sold enough advertising to cover the production costs, the school would not be billed at all, said Renaud.

But Kloss said her students had problems selling ads.

"I had seven different students selling ads, and the comments they received were that the ads were too expensive, that they could advertise in the Missourian for the same price," she said.

Recommended ad prices for The Tiger were close to prices for the Missourian, but Renaud said the school was free to set whatever prices it wished. The rates have been the same for the last three years.

This agreement has been in place about three years. Prior to that, the district paid close to $10,000 each year to print The Tiger.

With the new publishing agreement, Kloss said, advertising prices for The Tiger will be lower next year. She hopes that will translate into more success for her student salespersons.

"We will use our laser printer and will paste it up ourselves," Kloss said. "This way students will have the experience of pasting it up also.

"The Missourian was designing the ads and they looked great. But students didn't have the experience of designing the ads."

Under the new arrangement, the paper will be sold on the high school campus only. "A lot of kids wouldn't buy the paper at school because it was going to be in the Missourian the next day. This should help our sales of newspapers."

While she agreed that the added exposure in the Missourian was good for students, she added, "It's a student paper. Those students will still take the paper home to parents."

Kloss will start her second year as publications adviser at Central in the fall.

"I'm still trying to make it my own program and the administration has been very supportive of this," Kloss said. "If it doesn't work, we may put it back in the Missourian the next year."

Angie Keys, who was editor of The Tiger this past year, said she has mixed feelings about the change.

"I know it's expensive to have the paper in the Missourian. But I got a lot of recognition from people who had read it in the Missourian.

"I liked having people read it. I got comments from people all the time, mostly older people who didn't have kids in school anymore," Keys said.

Renaud said the Jackson High School newspaper is printed by the Missourian under the same agreement. "That has been going fine," Renaud said. "Again, it's not a profit-maker, but it's an asset to the Missourian."

The Jackson High School newspaper will continue to be distributed in the Southeast Missourian to Jackson households next year.